A cluster tool type vacuum processing system is well known as a type of a vacuum processing system including a vacuum conveyance chamber. In the cluster tool type vacuum processing system, a plurality of process modules that perform a predetermined processing under reduced pressure are arranged around a vacuum conveyance chamber in order to facilitate consistency, linking or complexation of processes. The cluster tool type vacuum processing system is also referred to as a multi-chamber type and is typically employed in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.
Recently, in such a cluster tool type vacuum processing apparatus, a layout becomes a trend in which the vacuum processing apparatus is additionally equipped with a process module along a long side of the vacuum conveyance chamber by increasing the size of the vacuum conveyance chamber in the depth direction while reducing or maintaining the width size of the entire apparatus, when viewed from a load port side where loading/unloading of a cassette configured to accommodate non-processed substrates or processing-finished substrates is performed. See, e.g., Patent Document 1.
In a cluster tool type vacuum processing system in which the vacuum conveyance chamber is extended in the depth direction and a plurality of process modules are arranged in the depth direction as described above, a configuration is employed in which the conveyance space within the vacuum conveyance chamber is divided into a plurality of vacuum conveyance areas each of which is provided with a vacuum conveyance robot configured to give and take substrates with the process modules around the vacuum conveyance area, and a relay table is arranged adjacent to a boundary between vacuum conveyance areas so as to allow the vacuum robots to give and take substrates with each other. See, e.g., Patent Document 2. In this case, when viewed from a load-lock module that interfaces an atmosphere space of the load port side and the reduced pressure space within the vacuum conveyance chamber, the vacuum conveyance robot in front of the load-lock module and an inner vacuum conveyance robot are configured to be connected in series through the relay table.